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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I am continually learning (through the two small goobers below---not the dancing goobers) exactly how hard being a Mother can be. The more I learn (and the more grief the two goobers below give me), the more I appreciate all you did and are doing for me.

You are one of the most generous people I know. And let's face it, you always knew how to have a good time.

I know you are going to want to wring my neck for this picture. I am ok with that.

For your present we finished your quilt top. Eowyn helped. Ok, so you paid me to make it for you. But still.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

April has been a beautiful month. On top of the blessings of singing birds, yellow tulips, and 70 degree weather, I've had two weekends with road trips! Visiting Jenny in Indianapolis without kids was wonderfully refreshing. One double cheeseburger in my lap, a CD of Sherlock Holmes stories in the stereo, and a sunny open road. I was trembling with happiness. We visited the art museum, went out for dinner, went to the Feist concert. The concert was absolutely perfect---Feist was better in person than on CD, and it was delicious to just relax and listen.

A couple from church gave us their bike trailer, and the girls love to ride around in the "carriage". It's nice to be able to get out without our klunky double stroller. Phoebe's mickey mouse helmet does strange things to me. You know that feeling you get when your child cannot possibly get any cuter? That violent I'm-going-to-EAT-you feeling? I have to stop myself from totally smothering her.

Last weekend we went to Grammie and Poppie's to collect the rest of the bunk beds and see Aunt Kim's high school's musical. Eowyn decided to accessorize from the dress up trunk before we left. The nice thing about Phoebe is that she doesn't mind being attacked with love when she's being cute. Eowyn no longer appreciates this. So here she is, looking smashingly cute and funny, and I'm supposed to act totally normal about it. I guess I'm going to have to learn some motherly self control.

Favorite recent website finds:

Jango.com. Because I have a lot of work on the computer, I listen to a lot of music. We try not to download music illegally....(I say *try* just because I cannot be absolutely certain that there isn't some unpaid-for mp3 floating around here). I listen to music a lot, and yet the last time we actually bought music was...a very long time ago. It's just not in our budget right now. This site lets you create your own "radio station." You pick the artists you want to listen to. The more you've picked, the less it plays its own "recommendations." You can rate songs, and if you give it a song a bad rating, it will stop playing it. I have about 10 artists picked out, and it now rarely plays anything I haven't picked.

Hayden He opened for Feist. He played the harmonica. He won my heart....or at least my listening ear. Help me, I like indie folk rock.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

I have anticipated Friday for a long, long time. On Friday I am going to be free of younglings. On Friday I am finally visiting my sister in law. On Friday we are going to a Fiest concert. I am so, so psyched. (!!!!!!!!!)

In celebration of the event I made myself and my sister in law new purses. This is the second and third purse I've ever made.

I really like the pattern (found on the sidebar); each purse only took an afternoon to make. I had to claim the first one as mine (pink). It had all the mistakes (top stitching isn't as easy as it looks, and, since it's the last step, I went way too quickly). Hers is prettier. Sigh. It seems like you have to do every project twice to learn from all the dumb mistakes you did on the first. Oh well. Feist, here I come!

And I am so excited to report that making your own laundry detergent truly works! My dad bought me eight bars of Fels Naptha, and now we have sweet, thick, CHEAP, detergent that seems to be doing a good job. New purse. Cheap laundry detergent. Life is good.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

A cheery spring hello to my five faithful readers. May you be blessed for stopping by to read the bits and pieces of my life that randomly happen to land on this page. A brief review of the last month: we all got sick, we had a lovely Easter, I painted the kitchen for the third time. Oh! And my wonderful brother in law just happened to have a genuine copy of Photoshop CS2 that he lovingly sent my way. Good thing he didn't hand deliver it or I may have had to kiss him, and we all know that kissing brothers in law can make for a real awkward moment. I think it's a necessity that everyone have a bonafide techie in their lives. It makes for great hand-me-downs to those of us who have not been to Circuit City in the last decade.

One of my one good ideas recently (unlike the first two kitchen colors) included this handy thing, and I pass it on to you aspiring Proverbs-31-like-a-merchant-ship-ladies like myself.

This notebook is like 3 by 4 inches and is now an indispensable part of the pit I carry around with me, also known as a purse. It's really a mini address book I bought for $3 at Wal-Mart. If your house is like mine, every room is slowly evolving into something that you actually really like. One day it may look like Pottery Barn, but, ahem, not today. When I am out and about, I tend to forget things. I find a fabric on sale that I like, but have no idea if it would look nice with the wall color, nor how many yards I would need to make curtains. This is my solution. Each little divider has each room's information on it---a paint chip that matches the wall color(s), measurements of each window and how much yardage I'd need for a new treatment, and other information. The page above has fabric scraps from the s' quilts so I can whip out the color scheme.

Of course it helps to have pages of other things I will never be able to remember, like my husband's shirt size, what clothing we need, how big our table is and what size tablecloth it takes.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Whenever someone has an old, overdeveloped, grainy photograph on the wall, don't you just have to go look at it? There's something about not only the age, but the non-perfection of it that makes it captivating. Old pictures are just life. Aunt Ethel is not looking at the camera, the baby started to cry, Dad didn't bother to smile. It's not "Pose for the twentieth time, kids, because I didn't get the perfect shot yet." Unedited life is usually much more interesting than staged pseudo pictures. But while I'm sure I'll never give up getting it just right, I found a way to mess up the newness of them. Did I convince you on the Gimp? Here's stage two: vintage pictures. I'm not going to go into detail here, but viola, my latest messings around:

Why do I love this picture of Phoebe so much? It's just so...Phoebe. From the chubby wrist wrinkles, to the can't-make-her-smile-for-anything look on her face.Brief, hardly in-depth instructions to vintage your photos, although there's probably an easier way and I hardly know what I'm doing to begin with:

1. Get the GIMP. It won't kill you. It's free. Remember? Truth be told, you can do this with pretty much any photo editing program. But those aren't free. So get the GIMP.

2. Pick your photo. I think the un-perfect shots look the most convincing, although we all know the picture of the ballerina above is, indeed, perfect to begin with.

3. Open your photo. If I have to explain how to do this, really, just forget it.

6. With your original photo selected, create a new layer. Layer > New Layer. Bring up the Layers dialog box: Dialogs > Layers. Layers are your friends. It took me a long time to figure this out. Basically you're going to layer these files over your picture and make them transparent so you can see the picture on the bottom. Open both of the textures you saved to your computer.

7. Copy and paste the black border texture into the new layer on your photo. Resize it to fit your picture. To resize, select the tool with the square with the arrow pointing up.Mess with the transparency so you can see your original through it. To do this, select the new layer in the layers dialog and move the slider under "Opacity." You may also want to mess with the brightness and contrast for your original and the black border texture. To do this, select either layer and click Colors > Brightness & Contrast.

8. Once you're happy with it, create a third layer. Copy and paste the yellow texture onto the new layer. Size it to fit. Make sure this layer's function is not on grayscale. Image > Mode > RGB. Once again mess with the transparency and brightness & contrast.

9. To add a sepia hue (or any other color you may desire), choose your picture or the yellow layer (I messed with the yellow layer). Colors > Color Balance. Add a combination of yellow and red.

10. Mess with your picture until you like it, or until your children start begging you for some food and a fresh diaper. Save your picture with whatever file extension you prefer (I did .jpg). Impress your technologically illiterate friends.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I am in love with the GIMP. No, I'm not referring to Husband, though I guess he is pretty great too. I mean the totally free graphics program. I have been lusting after Photoshop for a while now. I'm learning how to take better photos and post-shooting computer editing seems to be an important part of the process. Plus, the program is just plain cool. However, I do not have a free limb to sell in order to afford it. But the more I use the Gimp, the more I'm convinced that I don't need Photoshop. Whew. If it's free, it's for me.

A few nights ago I was messing around with the Gimp (hmmm...) and discovered the Filters menu. I tried out turning my photos to black and white, then using the "Photocopy" option...and viola, awesomely (is a word, like, totally) personalized coloring pages! I really like the look of these, like someone hand drew them. Eowyn has been going through a coloring obsession lately, sometimes spending an entire hour with crayons, and she was most excited to color a picture of our cat.

Eowyn is quite over the top with the cat lately. Whenever she walks by Lancelot, she has to pet him and talk to him in the following fashion: "Oh hi, Lancey Pantsy Poo!! How are you? Yes, ooooo, Lancey, you like that don't you? I love you so much, Lancey Pantsy Poo...." you get the gist. Before she leaves the house she must hug and maul the cat. Before going to her cousins' house the other day she rushed up to Lance and said, "Oh, Lance, you don't think I should go, do you? You think I should stay home with you! But I have to go!" Sometimes I think it's really funny and slightly endearing. Other times it's, "Oh please, will you just leave the cat alone?!"

Directions to convert your pictures:

1. Download the GIMP. 2. Open your picture.3. Convert to grayscale. Image ----Mode----Grayscale.4. Photocopy. Filters---Artistic----Photocopy. Mess around with it until it looks good.